Frozen in Time
by ashangel101010
Summary: Mr. Freeze is trapped in a fiery inferno with Death holding a torch over his soul, but he remains cold because he can only think of Nora, his beloved Nora.


Frozen in Time

"I can't breathe…." The heat is warping Mr. Freeze's field of vision. His laboratory was once a winter wonderland that suited him and Nora. Now, it is a cesspool of flames embedded with suffocation. If he was human, the heat wouldn't be beating him like Batman and despair. He hasn't been human since freezing Nora, since stopping Death. Humans can age, but he hasn't the lines on his face like someone his age should. The only lines he has are frown lines from years of failing to cure Nora. Nora hasn't aged either, does that make her inhuman like he is? No, it makes her even more vital than his humanity.

"Nora…." Where would he be without the spinning of her golden hair? Or the caressing of her gentle hand against his cheek? He would be dead that he is certain. He is resting his forehead against the glass that is shielding his wife from the merciless heat and from the cold villain that is her husband. Maybe being dead as a human being would have been better than enduring this Hell for her?

"Never….Nora!" He would never regret the life he had chosen for her. He would never regret the moment that he saw her ice skating at college. He would never regret the moment that he proposed to her and her eyes became even more luminous than the aurora borealis. He would never forget the memory of her beautiful, blue eyes closing in eternal sleep like Sleeping Beauty. He would never forget the memory of Thomas Wayne shutting his cryogenics lab down because Mr. Wayne traced the energy bill back to Nora's freezing apparatus. He would never forget the memory of ice entering his veins and becoming Mr. Freeze in pursuit to save and avenge Nora.

"Nora….I'm sorry." He falls to the ground. He can no longer shield Nora from the flames like he cannot cure her disease. What kind of husband is he if he cannot protect his wife? What kind of scientist is he if he cannot fix the circuit breaker that caused this inferno? What kind of man is he if he cannot pull himself together to call for help? He is a bachelor, not a husband. He is a madman, not a scientist. He is a monster, not a man. Nora deserves so much more than him. She deserves to be in the warm sun with a husband that can laugh with her, not entomb her in ice and weep at his failures. He hears glass breaking and his heart nearly jettisons from his chest. Nora's glass coffin isn't broken, but the ceiling in the adjoining room has. In the belfry of fire and volcano of ash, he can see the solemn Dark Knight of Gotham. Batman the bane of Mr. Freeze and now Nora's only hope. Batman can do the one thing that Victor Fries and Mr. Freeze has failed to do. Batman can save Nora.

"BATMAN!" His shout, scream, plea nearly sapped the oxygen that the fire hadn't stolen from him. He can see the Caped Crusader running like he does whenever some silly flirt is about to fall to her death. Mr. Freeze slips into darkness and Victor jumps right into the light when Batman shook him. Victor tenses because he does not want to be saved. He does not deserve to be saved because he has done horrible deeds that perhaps Nora may never forgive him for. Nora, his sweet Nora, she is innocent. Batman saves the innocent.

"N-Nora…Wayne Industries….save her." Victor grips tightly on Batman like it will make Batman listen to him actually _**listen**_ to him for once. The fire is raging and roiling like Victor's hatred for Thomas Wayne and the world. He can see the Batman's eyes; his eyes are the color of the darkest and coldest tundra, nothing like Nora's bright, wonderful snow eyes. He can feel himself being lowered like a corpse being lowered into a shallow grave. Victor smiles, something he hasn't done since Nora fell ill, and he watches Batman save his love. The glass coffin shatters under the mighty punch of Batman's iron fist. The water from the coffin leaves Nora and drenches Victor, a brief respite for his torture in Dante's Inferno. Batman has Nora in his arms and a part of him wants to shout to Batman to stop touching his wife. Batman is standing there like he believes that he may be able to carry Victor too, to save Mr. Freeze and unite the couple one day. But it is a fantasy that even Ace cannot turn into reality.

"Leave me, save Nora." He doesn't croak, but yearns through his desire to see her live. Batman carries his sleeping wife as he runs out of the building. Victor Fries is alone with the flames draining his life and melting his consciousness, but he is fine within his very human heart. Bruce Wayne, son of the man that nearly killed his Nora, has the money and technology to keep Nora in suspended animation until the genius multi-billionaire finds her cure. Nora may yet again bask in the hot winds of the warm, summer sun and cool off by ice skating at the frozen lake where he saw Nora for the first time. Love does not drive men mad, but it simply unlatches the evil that lay dormant. Nora never drove him mad, but Victor did that to himself.

"….Nora." Victor closes his eyes to the fiery background; he has grown weary of fire and ice that Robert Frost was so fond of. He drifts off into memories of Nora, but not of what he did to her. Nora drinks hot chocolate with him after the grueling English midterm. Nora tries to show Victor how to skate even though Victor is awkward and unsteady around her. Nora kisses him for the first time under the mistletoe back at the college dorms. Nora walks down the aisle in her white dress that angels could never be able to pull off. Victor is standing at the end of the aisle with his plain tuxedo and goofy, bifocal glasses. Flowers are being strewn around Nora by the flower girls. She seems like the picture of health that day, they did not know of the disease, ticking time bomb in her. The priest, simple and portly, says some words and Victor could not hear because his attention was fully focused on his bride, on his Nora.

"I do." She says, maybe he said, and they kiss. Time stops right then and there. The tragedy does not unfold. Nora does not fall ill. Victor is not warped into Mr. Freeze. Their love is preserved like Snow White in her slumber. No Thomas Wayne can ruin him, no disease will stop Nora. No fire shall burn them into charred skeletons. Victor Fries and Nora Fries remain in this frozen state of bliss for all eternity.


End file.
